A Look at google launches Wear OS 7 with 4 key upgrades
Google is rolling out Wear OS 7 to its Pixel Watch smartwatch series, with a focus on all-day usability.
While Android 17 is getting all of the attention right now, there’s also a new version of Google’s smartwatch OS hitting eligible Pixel Watch devices (everything but the original Google Pixel Watch) as we speak.
It will arrive on other smartwatch brands such as Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus and more in time. The news follows on from Verizon leaking that the new wearable software was coming, though it got the date a bit wrong.
Google claims that Wear OS 7 is focused on supporting “all-day, every-day use”. Here are the four major additions and improvements intended to achieve that goal.
Glanceable Live Updates
Google introduced Live Updates with Android 16 last year, offering real-time glanceable information such as sports scores and food delivery progress. That’s now coming to Pixel Watch with Wear OS 7.
On-wrist device control
Google seems to be making your Pixel Watch more of a smart home hub with Wear OS 7. It’s improving the ability to control your other devices from your wrist.
Take a picture with your smart glasses, and a preview will pop up immediately on your Pixel Watch.
Elsewhere, media playback controls have been improved, letting you control what’s playing on your headphones and home speakers, as well as switching between the various audio outputs.
Gemini Intelligence comes to smartwatches
Select Pixel Watch devices (the newer ones, we suspect) will gain access to Google’s Gemini Intelligence later this year.
This will enable features such as Create My Widget, which lets you build a custom dashboard using natural language prompts.
You’ll also be able to initiate complex multi-step tasks from your wrist using natural language. Google uses the examples of reserving a front-row bike for your spin class or ordering your usual from your favourite restaurant.
Personal Intelligence, meanwhile, pulls together information from the various Google apps to provide contextual personalised suggestions.
Improved battery life
Google claims that various “system-level power optimisations” have resulted in an up to 10% improvement in battery life.
This one’s the most basic Wear OS 7 improvement of the lot, but might just be the most useful for a lot of Pixel Watch wearers.
As a reminder, these are the smartwatches getting Wear OS 7 at launch:
- Pixel Watch 4 (all sizes)
- Pixel Watch 3 (all sizes)
- Pixel Watch 2
